No, prime minister

From European Voice's Entre-Nous column

7/27/11, 9:12 PM CET

Updated 4/23/14, 9:11 PM CET

Latvia's prime minister chooses New York over referendum at home.

Where would you expect a prime minister to be on the eve of a referendum that could bring down his government? Latvia’s Valdis Dombrovskis was in New York to ring the closing bell on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

The next day, Saturday (23 July), Latvians voted in a referendum on whether to dissolve parliament – and the parliament was chucked out by the not-so-slender margin of 94% in favour.

The referendum had been called by the outgoing President Valdis Zatlers in May, with the justification that: “I got fed up of living in a country ruled by lies, cynicism and greed”.

Zatlers had been exasperated by the refusal of Latvia’s 100-strong parliament to lift the immunity of Ainars Slesers, a magnate and party leader. Anti-corruption officials had wanted to search Slesers’ house, he had refused them entry, and parliament had backed his stance.

The result shows that Latvians tend to side with Zatlers rather than with Slesers.

A general election will now be held in September, and Dombrovskis, a former member of the European Parliament, must be worried for his job since his coalition government has only a five-seat majority. Nonetheless, he welcomed the result – a prudent course given how one-sided it was.